SPJ Awards Program Set for June 18; Nominate for Top Rookie, First Freedom Award

This year's SPJ Excellence in Journalism Awards will be presented Saturday, June 18, in Seattle.

The annual awards banquet, which recognizes the best in Northwest journalism, will be part of this year's SPJ Region 10 conference.

Watch for more details soon.

In a recent blog post, Region 10 Director Ethan Chung noted: "We are still finalizing final venue information, so watch the blog in the next few weeks for further information.

"I would love to hear your thoughts on programming. What do you want to learn about? Any specific speakers or workshops you’d like to see here at this year’s conference? Please feel free to pitch me.

"Special thanks to all those who volunteered to judge contest entries. Since our regional contest is one of the largest in the country, we have to judge the entries of three other contests in return. Two of those three assignments are completed, and we should receive the third by mid-April. If you signed up to judge the contest, but haven’t received assignments yet, please sit tight. You should receive them in the next week or two."

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Nominate Your Rookie of the Year, First Freedom Award Candidates 

Now's the time to send your nominations for the Rookie of the Year and the First Freedom Award.

Rookie of the Year: This award goes to a journalist who had her or his first full-time reporting job during 2015. Internships do not count, but nominees can have been hired full-time at any point during the year.

Editors (or other co-workers) should submit a letter of recommendation and three clips.

Submissions should be sent to spjoregon@gmail.com

The deadline for submissions is 5 p.m. May 18.

Remember, in addition to the recognition, the Rookie of the Year winner receives a $500 cash award.

First Freedom Award: This award goes to a nonjournalist who has advocated for more open records and government in Oregon.

Examples in the past have included district attorneys, nonprofit groups and citizen bloggers. Nominations should demonstrate a tangible impact of some kind and should be sent to spjoregon@gmail.com.

The deadline also is 5 p.m. May 18.

Please forward this notice to anyone in your newsrooms who may be interested in either nominating someone for an award or attending the awards program in June.

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SPJ Event: Covering the Oregon Standoff -- Saturday, April 16

Photo courtesy of The Oregonian

Tickets are on sale now for the SPJ panel discussion "Covering the Oregon Standoff" at 6:30 p.m. Saturday, April 16, at the Kennedy School McMenamins in Portland.

Join us for a discussion of how Oregon media covered the Malheur Wildlife Refuge takeover, lessons learned, and advice for other journalists. 

Panelists include Les Zaitz (The Oregonian), Amanda Peacher and John Sepulvado (Oregon Public Broadcasting), Wanda Moore (KTVZ), and Samantha White (Burns Times-Herald). Jeff Wohler, retired Oregonian editor, will moderate.

The event, hosted by the Oregon Territory Chapter of SPJ, is free for current SPJ members and $10 for non-members.

We'll provide food and non-alcoholic drinks. A Q&A session will follow the 90-minute panel discussion. Please stick around to socialize with your fellow journalists. There's also plenty to explore at the McMenamins Kennedy School, at 5736 N.E. 33rd Ave. in Portland.

Space is limited so please reserve your seats today!

Get your tickets here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/covering-the-oregon-standoff-journalists-stories-tickets-23065663019

Questions? Email us at spjoregon@gmail.com.

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NEW: Monthly SPJ Happy Hour!

Photo courtesy of Petr Kratochvil/FreeStockPhotos.biz

Journos! Journalism-adjacent friends who like beer!

Come join us for drinks at the Green Dragon from 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, March 22!

Invite your colleagues and friends! We've got two tables reserved in the bistro area near the front doors.

Please RSVP on our Facebook event page.

Green Dragon Bistro & Brew Pub is located at 928 S.E. 9th Ave. in Portland.

We're hoping to make this happy hour a monthly event (fourth Tuesday of every month, most likely) with a rotating location. Green Dragon is a very beery place with a ton of taps, but also has liquor, cider and non-alcoholic beverages as well. And food!

We hope to see you there!

Questions? Email us at spjoregon@gmail.com

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Free Watchdog Reporting Workshop from IRE, SPJ, NECIR

Northwest Journalists,

I’m reaching out from the New England Center for Investigative Reporting to share a great opportunity for journalists from your newsroom to apply to a free two-day watchdog reporting training in May.

Thanks to a grant from Sigma Delta Chi Foundation, the Society for Professional Journalists is working with Investigative Reporters and Editors and the New England Center for Investigative Reporting to offer a two-day Watchdog Reporting Workshop.

We're looking for two reporters, editors or producers from your newsroom who you believe have the desire and the potential to do in-depth investigative stories. No previous investigative reporting experience necessary. This workshop will teach the basics including how to mine the internet for information that leads to compelling stories, how to crunch data, how to conduct an investigative interview and how to investigate businesses and nonprofits.

If your team is chosen, they will be given ongoing consultation after the training to help you complete a story or investigative project. Please note: Preference will be given to newsroom teams, but individual applicants and freelance journalists are encouraged to apply.

Our 2016 Portland workshop will be held at the University of Oregon’s Portland center May 4-5.

The sessions and the follow-up training are free, thanks to the support from Sigma Delta Chi Foundation. You'll be responsible for any travel costs.

To nominate a team for this opportunity, complete this form. The deadline for the Portland workshop is April 1, 2016.

If you’d like any more information, please let me know.

Thank you!

Jill


Jillian Saftel
Training Manager
New England Center for Investigative Reporting
617-353-5391
www.necir.org

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SPJ Contest Deadline Extended to Feb. 20

From the desk of Ethan Chung, SPJ's Region 10 Director:

BREAKING NEWS: Contest deadline extended!

To help everyone get their entries completed in time, we’ve extended the 2015 Northwest Excellence in Journalism Contest deadline to Saturday, Feb. 20, at 5 p.m. PST.

For more details on the rules and guidelines, visit the contest website or contact our contest committee. Please read instructions carefully before entering the contest.

We are also still accepting volunteers to help judge out-of-state contest entries. Sign up with this Google form.

We look forward to seeing your great work. Good luck!

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SPJ Journalism Contest Now Open; Entry Deadline Is Feb. 15

By Ethan Chung

The 2015 SPJ Northwest Excellence in Journalism Contest is officially open for applications!

If you are a journalist working for professional print, broadcast, or online media in SPJ Region 10 (Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Alaska and Montana), we’d love to see your work.

Based on member and entrant feedback from last year, the 2015 contest committee has implemented several changes.

Some things to know:

• Region 10 is working with a new contest vendor this year. We are hoping this change leads to more user-friendly interface and improves communication with contestants.
• All entries, including General Excellence, can only be submitted digitally.
• All entries this year are $20 for regular categories, and $50 for General Excellence.
• We have combined the Non-daily and Alt Weekly categories to make them more competitive.
• We have added a new daily print category: DAILY Very Large (A daily print and/or online publication with staff of 41 or more).

The daily print competition is now as follows:

• DAILY-Small: A daily print and/or online publication with staff of 10 or fewer
• DAILY-Medium: A daily print and/or online publication with staff of 11-25
• DAILY-Large: A daily print and/or online publication with staff of 26-40
• DAILY-Very Large: A daily print and/or online publication with staff of 41 or more

We have added more visual categories to better recognize the work of visual journalists.

The contest deadline: Feb. 15, 2016 at 5 p.m. PST.

Winners will be announced later this year on the Region 10 blog.

If you have questions, contact us at spjnwcontest@gmail.com.

To enter, and for more rules and information, click here.

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Mark Your Calendar: Build a Better Journalist Conference, Jan. 23, 2016

Come build yourself into a better journalist with a day-long conference packed with helpful, real-world tips from top presenters on Saturday, Jan. 23, at the George S. Turnbull Portland Center in Portland.

Spend the morning in a nationally recognized hands-on workshop on fact-checking from the American Press Institute (API). Then break out into sessions on a range of topics before ending the day with a panel discussion from reporters who covered the Oct. 1 Umpqua Community College shooting. Find out how they covered it, and how we can ethically report when tragedy hits our communities.

Admission is FREE for current SPJ student and professional members. For non-members, pay just $25 as a professional and $15 as a student. (Not a member yet? Join online at www.spj.org/join.asp) Cost includes breakfast and a catered lunch. Order tickets online at http://spjoregon.eventbrite.com.

Connect with your fellows on the Facebook page: facebook.com/SPJOregon

Here's the day's schedule:

• 9 a.m. Introduction/breakfast
• 9:15: API: Understanding campaign ads: History/background/types of deception
• 10 a.m.: API: Social media verification
• 10:45 a.m.: API: Understanding audience bias, ways to reach wider audiences with fact-checking journalism
• 11:30 a.m.: API: Deep research: beyond Google
• 12:30 p.m.: Buffet-style lunch
• 1:30 p.m.: Student session on resume critiques (meet one-on-one with media industry hirers); Professional session by Online News Association on new technology in media
• 2:30-4 p.m.: Covering Roseburg: Panelists who were on the ground discuss what went well, what went wrong, and how to ethically cover tragedy in a small town

Questions? Email us at spjoregon@gmail.com

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